Cinema poster display cases, sometimes referred to as display signs, have been in use for many years, and are typically sized to accommodate a standard-sized movie poster. In the U.S., the standard film poster commonly displayed in theaters is known as a “one sheet”, which is 27 inches wide by 40 inches tall. Other countries have their own standard terminologies and sizes.
For a theatrical engagement of a particular movie, a poster arrives in the mail, rolled up in a tube from the respective film distributor. The poster is unrolled and placed in the front of a sign, which usually has a clamping mechanism to hold the poster against the front panel of the sign. At the end of the movie engagement, the poster is removed from the sign.
In a typical cinema sign, the movie poster is illuminated from the back and viewed from the front. These posters usually have a left-right inverted image of the front side printed on the back side, so that when viewed in back-lit illumination, the poster forms a single image with generally high contrast. Such posters may be referred to as “double sided”.
Initially, these movie signs used incandescent lamps as their light sources. In recent years, the incandescent lamps have been replaced by fluorescent lamps. The standard “one sheet”-sized cinema sign has fluorescent tubes extending vertically along the left and right edges of the poster area of the sign. When displayed in the sign, the poster is disposed at the front panel of the sign, and is typically about five inches in front of the back surface of the sign.
In recent years, light-emitting-diodes (LEDs) have emerged as a new technology for illumination and lighting applications. LEDs have potential advantages over fluorescent lamps in that they may be more efficient, may produce less heat, may having longer lifetimes, and may function more efficiently at cold temperatures. For these reasons and others, there has been a recent effort to incorporate LEDs into cinema signs. For example, a known LED-based display device is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,841,733 (Meulenbelt).